Pakistan Foreign Minister Requests UN Security Council Meeting on Jammu and Kashmir

Aug. 14, 2019 (EIRNS)—Tension between Pakistan and India over India’s revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status continues. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi addressed a letter to UN Security Council (UNSC) President Joanna Wronecka (Poland) stating:

“I wish to request that you convene an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council ... to consider the situation arising from the recent aggressive actions by India which pose a threat to international peace and security, willfully undermine the internationally recognized disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir, unilaterally aim to alter the demographic structure of the territory, and violate fundamental human rights,”

the Aug. 13 letter said.

Qureshi pointed to the curfew, a cut-off of all communication services, the arrests of numerous Kashmiri political leaders, closures of educational facilities, and advice to hospitals to “prepare for emergencies.” He wrote that since Aug. 5 additional human rights violations have occurred, including Indian troops killing and injuring scores of unarmed citizens who breached the curfew. “There is, furthermore, a clear and present danger that India will provoke another conflict with Pakistan to divert attention from its recent actions in occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” the letter said.

The restrictions imposed in the Kashmir valley will continue for some time while those in Jammu have been completely removed, a top police officer said today, reported Press Trust of India, and further that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is totally under control and there have been no major injuries to anyone.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed Khan told the New York Times that he doesn’t rule out the possibility that Pakistani troops will be redeployed from the Afghanistan border to the Kashmir frontier.

“If the situation escalates on the eastern border, we will have to undertake redeployments,” Khan pointed out, but right now, Islamabad is “not thinking about anything but what is happening on our eastern border.... We are two big countries, with very large militaries, with nuclear capability and a history of conflict, so I would not like to burden your imagination on that one. But obviously if things get worse, things get worse,”

Ambassador Khan said.

Indian Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat responded to concern about the movement of Pakistani military equipment near the Line of Control, being quoted by Sputnik yesterday as telling reporters: “Everybody does a precautionary deployment, and we should not get too concerned about it. As far as the Army and other services are concerned, we always have to be prepared.”